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Friday, January 13, 2012

MST3K: Episode 110 - Robot Holocaust

If you've been paying attention, then you know that watching all of the Mystery Science Theater 3000. If not, more about that can be found here and here.

Episode 110: Robot Holocaust

First aired: The Comedy Channel on 13 January 1990Availability: MST3KVideos.com

This is only the second episode of Season One that isn't (or wasn't ever) available commercially. This one has never been released commercially in any format.

The end of Commando Cody

This one is a recording from a 1991 rerun (either July 5 or November 29). The commercials are edited out, but the breaks are a little rough or abrupt. There are some odd spots in it that lead me to think this recording has more than one source and they're put together, though it could simply be some issues with how it was transferred to DVD from VHS.

Since they switched to opening with Joel, this is the first episode where he isn't wearing a house robe to start the show. The first four episodes to air opened with the Mad Scientists, usually with one of them running the camera by joystick. The next four episodes to air went down the hallway with the doors closing, finally closing in the main bay with Joel in his robe. Now, this episode continues the hallway opening, but no robe for Joel.

The Bots have joined him in the opening again. The first two Joel openings featured him alone. It looks like they've settled on the standard of J&tB in the opening, which is pretty much as I remember.

"Yew ah doomd!"

Joel again explains the premise of the show again for the fourth time in five episodes, even though the theme song explains the premise. I'm glad Gilligan's Island didn't explain their premise every time.

During the first interaction with the Mad Scientists, Dr. Erhardt mentions that he and Dr. Forrester "have been subterranean for 93 days." In reality, this show aired 56 days after the first episode. Yes, I know: it's just a show, I should really just relax.

I noticed that they really love the Sea Hunt gags, using the "By this time my lungs were aching for air" for the third straight show. I imagine it'll be a Sea Hunt fest when they finally do a Lloyd Bridges movie. There's one coming up on Season Two that I've seen; the actual movie, I mean.

The movie was their first color film in Season One. Joel & the Bots played up getting all excited about it. Then got all depressed when the Mads told them it was the "edited for TV" version. They had to cut the movie because of the boobage, from what I remember of the uncut version. Oh, and if you want to see the uncut version, you really don't.

The movie had the occasional narration in order to help explain what was going on. It didn't help. Would hot Japanese she-villains have helped? Maybe. The hot German she-villain would have done better if she was able to speak English better. Or if her lines had been dubbed.

If you see the actual movie, or even watching the MST3K version, you might think, "Is this what it would look like if a porn producer decided to make a post-apocalyptic robot film?" The answer is yes. Now you know why porn makers make porn. It's what they do. They don't need to be making nature documentaries. Or post-apocalyptic robot films.